EVENT 1. REPORT

BIG MEETING OF THE CHARTER OF EUROPEAN RURAL COMMUNITIES

IN KANNUS – 06/07/2017 – 10/07/2017

PROJECT: ''TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY AS CORE VALUES FOR THE FUTURE OF EUROPE''

A FEW WORDS FROM THE HOSTING MUNICIPALITY - KANNUS

Kannus was the host of the Charter of European rural communities SUMMER MEETING in July 2017. There was 174 visitors from 23 different country in the Europe. In this big meeting we had the theme of tolerance, cultural diversity—aspect of mutual understanding and compromise. The main goal of this whole project is to stimulate active European citizenship and help us to understand each others life in their own coutries. We think that this target was achieved. Summer is a great time to visit in Finland and fortunately the weather was fine and you all see our midnight sun which is a nice custom to all of us. We had a pleasure time with all of you and we hope that you will remember Finland and Kannus for a long time. Our hostfamilies was very pleased to have you in their homes and we hope you saw a piece of finish life in your hostfamilies. We have 61 hostfamilies here in Kannus and they were happy to have you here.

City of Kannus

GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE MEETING

PROJECT: Co-funded by the Europe for Citizens Programme of the Strand 2 - Measure 2.2 Networks of Towns Decision No 2017 - 1310 / 001 - 001 Reference No 588829-CITIZ-1-2017-1-PL-CITIZ-NT Project for the period 2017 – 2018

PROJECT TITLE : Tolerance and solidarity as core values for the future of Europe

EVENT NUMBER: 1

TOPIC: Cultural diversity – the meaning of mutual understanding and willingness to compromise

DATE: 06/07/2017 – 10/07/2017

PARTICIPANTS: 182 participants

The event involved 182 citizens, including participants from 24 municipalities (countries):

1. Bienvenida, Spain, 2. Bievre, , 3. , Italy, 4. Cisse, France, 5. Desborough, United Kingdom, 6. Esch, The Netherlands, 7. , Germany, 8. Ibanesti, Romania,

9. , Latvia, 10. Kannus, Finland, 11. , Austria, 12. Lefkara, Cyprus, 13. , Slovakia, 14. Moravce, Slovenia, 15. , Malta, 16. Naestved, Denmark, 17. , Hungary, 18. Ockelbo, Sweden, 19. Estonia, Polva, 20. Stary Poddvorov, Czech Republic, 21. Strzyzow, Poland, 22. , Croatia, 23. Troisvierges, , 24. Zagare, Lithuania.

The meeting in Kannus was the first one of the current adult program of the European Charter. To sum up, in the meeting participated 182 participants from 24 different countries, including invited Project Partners and the Hosting Partner – represented by local participants, with President and Secretary of the Charter. More than 60 host families from Kannus provided accommodation in their houses and spent free time with participants.

PROGRAMME OF THE MEETING

THURSDAY 06/07/2017 Delegations arrived in Kannus on Thursday 6th July. Guides met the arrivals and busses took those who had arrived to by train or by aeroplane. Host families picked up the arrivals and the integration and common time begun.

FRIDAY 07/07/2017 On Friday, the day begun by morning prayer at the church. The Kannus church has arranged the circumstantial program in the church and partcipants walked in the parade to the opening ceremony at Kitinvapari. The opening ceremony started by the speech of the President of the Charter Mr. Karl Grammanitsch. At the begin participants spent a quiet moment to memory of Mr Frans Ronnes. The mayor of the Kannus Terttu Korte wished all welcome to the meeting. The Mayor of Kannus presented the ideas and aims of the project and specific aims of the meeting in Kannus. Kannus Aerodance and the Kannus Orchestra appeared on the stage. Participants ate the lunch at Rauhanyhdistys and after that they met at the workshops. The adults made the deal with finnish trainers and the youngsters was thinking the theme of charity. Information of the workshop is with this raport. In the Friday evening partcipants spent the nice time together in Kitinvapari where they had the Culinary Evening with all different tastes and cultures. Finnish Santa Claus was visiting also in our Culinary Evening. Friday evening was unforgettable night and laughter was with us all night. Participants have put special attention to the table presentation. Each European Participant proudly wore its colours and many of them made the trip with the characteristic clothes of their country. The participants enjoyed full flavour dishes of the member countries. The local inhabitants from Kannus were also invited to this event and lots of them discovered some new specialities of all around Europe. The municipality of Kannus aslo took care of presenting many different national specialities.

SATURDAY 08/07/2017 At the night some went to bar where a band was playing till the morning. On Saturday we spend time by exploring the culture of Finland and Kannus. Mäkiraonmäki is the culture centre of Kannus and we spend there time with adults and young people. In Mäkiraonmäki there was different ways of worknig from old time. We saw how to make finnish ”karjalan piirakka” pies for example. In Kitinvapari sportfield there was possibility to see how to play Finnish baseball game or our own mölkky play. In the evening there was a night market opens and the night of events aroud the town centrum: market booths, performances, bands, a concert at the church and so one.

IN Kalajoki is a famous place near by Kannus. We wanted to introduce the place for you. In Kalajoki there was an adventure park, SUPing, spa and golf. Sun was shining and we have a nivce time there.

SUNDAY 09/07/2017 In the Sunday evening we had a Dinner and the good-bye-ceremony.

MONDAY 10/07/2017 Before the meeting, all Kannus as well as its surroundings expected the guests from all Europe. It was the first experience of this kind for the organizers. Most host families had not known the coming guests as they had never visited a Charter meeting before.

On the Monday morning was the time to say Goodbye to the Guests from all Europe. The guests enjoyed the meeting and they went home leaving host families as new friends. The inhabitants of Kannus also have nice memories and were very pleased to have been able to participate in such an interesting and integrating event. During the whole meeting participants echanged their thoughts, values and ideas. Participants from Kannus presented their customs and traditions, sharing their national heritage during the opening ceremony and in their houses as well. Invited participants repay for it presenting their national food and drinks within the intercultural evening. All the partciapnts took part in many debates, formal and non-formal discussions, exchanging heir experiences and views but at the same time representing different attitutes and cultural pronciples. All the activities carried out and the received knowledge led to the realization and appreciationof the main European values, such as solidarity and tolerance.

WORKSHOPS’ RESULTS

The topic of the event in Kannus was Cultural diversity – the meaning of mutual understanding and willingness to compromise. It’s one of the 6 topics icluded within the project Tolerance and solidarity as core values for the future of Europe. Topics such as tolerance, solidarity and mutual understanding consisted the main issues of the event. All workhops were divided into several parts.

The first part of the workhops were presentations dellivered by:  Terttu Korte, Mayor of Kannus;  Sanna Forslund, Head of Early Childhood education;  Leena Kivijakola, Head of Education services;  Jarmo Matintalo, Adult education manager, Kpedu;  Mari Äijälä, Agent, Business services.

All the presentation discussed the aspects of cultural diversity, mutual understanding and willingness to compromise. In addition there was presented the short history of Finland as EU member and the process of joining the European Union. This topic was presented also from the perspective of the municipality of Kannus as in the 1995, this town was one of the most negative municipality against the EU-membership. One of the opponents were for example farmers who were very afraid of it. Nowadays, after 20 years, the Education System, companies and employees in Kannus are much more international. It was just confirmation that all concerns, fears and doubt were simply unjustified. During the break the participants have a chance to discuss the problem of euroscepticism taking part in informal discussions, discussing the current role of the European Union and its future.

The second part of the workhops was based on the Kahoot game. This time participants took part as national groups. In this part of workshop there were participating 25 different national groups.

Participants answered the questions on their own devices and devices provided by the Moderators of the workshop. All answers were displayed on a shared screen, visible to all participants. The results were presented as the percentage of each possible asnwer to the questions. Having answered to the questions the teams were gien a time to discuss it and compare the answers with other groups.

Questions asked within Kahoot game: Question 1. How has the EU influenced to cultural diversity in your town? A: Not at all B: A little bit C: Quite a lot D: A lot

 Question 2 How many different " cultural or ethnic " groups exist in your town in average? A: 1 B: 2 C: 3 D: More than 3

 Question 3: In your opinion what is “the good age” to take babies to daycare service? A: around age of 12 months B: age of 24 months C: age of 36 months D: any age

 Question 4: At what age in your country starts the teaching of foreign language to little children? A: 2-3 years B: 4-5 years C: 6 year old

D: over 6

 Question 5: Does gender (boy/girl) influence studying/career possibilities? A: Yes B: No

 Question 6: How many foreign languages can be studied in your town? A: 1 B: 2-3 C: 4-5 D: More than 5

 Question 7 Is there any foreign workers in your town? A: Yes B: No

 Question 8 What cultural skills are most important in work in future? A: Language B: Professional skills C: Social skills D: Attitude

 Question 9: Are you sending or receiving workers to/from other countries? A: Sending B: Receiving

 Question 10: Is the need of labor increasing or decreasing? A: Increasing B: Decreasing

The detailed results of this game are presented in attachement 1. Kahoot game - results. In game took part 24 groups, which were grouped accordingly to the nationality. The questions were created in such a way to provide to discuss the issues, such as cultural diversity, integration, the aspect of tolerance and mutual understanding within education and labour market as factores essential to develop these areas. The answers to the first questions proved that memberhip of their countries in EU had influenced the diversity in their towns and in the most of the partcipated municipalities(71%) there are 3 or more more culural ethnic groups. The question about the age when starts the teaching of foreign language to little children in particular countries led to debate about the necessity of starting learning foreign languages as early as possible. The question about the infuence of gender in studying or in career possibilities showed that in more than 70% of represenatives of particular municpalities claim that there is no correlation between gender and possibilities in studying or career. All partcipants claimed that there are foreign workers in their towns they live. Participants also assessed the most important skills in work in the future. The decided that in the near future employers will appreciate not only professional skills (21%) and social skills (33%) but the answer which scored the most points (46%) was attitude. Thwe interviewees claimed that they are rather sending workers to other countries(54%) than receiveing workers from other countries (46%). But even though the answers were differentatied, above 80% of participants agreed that the need of labor work is increasing. This quiz led to the main debate about the need of tolerance and solidarity in mulicultural society. In order for the European labour market to function properly, EU citizens should be aware of the role of tolerance and solidarity in their societies, whether they have the role of migrant or a host. The last workshop was entitled as Let´s make some art together. Participants were given some artistic materials to create different paintings. All these paintings were designed by participants to reflect the topic of the meeting ''Cultural diversity – the meaning of mutual understanding and willingness to compromise''. The best examples of these paintings are included in attachement 2. Photos.

The aim of all enlisted activities was to involve participants into particular activities: conference, workshops, presentations, debates so that they were not only spectators but they were also involved together with other European participants. International dialogues, the exchange of experiences, ideas, opinions, preparing solutions and promoting best practices consisted an important part of workshops and conference and provided increased mutual understanding among participants and local inhabitants. The meeting was an important connectivity for the citizens of Europe allowing the citizens to make and renew strong friendships. Shared activities and staying with host families helped participansts to truly experience the culture of the host country through a complete immersion in the daily life of that culture and sharing daily lives according to one of the Charter slogan “at the kitchen table’’. These actions led to intensification of the sense of European membership. Wide coverage of events made through DVDs, Charter Newsletters and website led to promotion of European initiatives and encouragement of another municipalities and institutions from Finland to implement their own actions. Official number of participants record 182 individuals while in reality the number reached more than 600 units due to the large participation of local citizens. The municipality of Kannus involved participants who were engaged in particular parts of event preparation and realization phases. (conference, workshops, local trips, European Culinary Evening, etc.) 35 volunteers were engaged in different aspects of the events. The municipality involved also 62 host families. The flag parade, conferences and workshops were open to citizens and create additional participation